205 Live – September 4, 2018: WWE Won’t Stand For It
IMG Credit: WWE
205 Live
Date: September 4, 2018
Location: Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, Michigan
Commentators: Vic Joseph, Nigel McGuinness, Percy Watson
We’re coming up on another Cruiserweight Title match, but oddly enough it’s going to be taking place in Australia and it’s going to be Buddy Murphy getting a title shot instead of Drew Gulak, who has been built up for another title match in recent weeks. Other than that we could have some more from the better than expected midcard around here. Let’s get to it.
Here are last week’s results if you need a recap.
Drake Maverick gives us the opening recap with no mention of the Authors of Pain last night.
Opening sequence.
Tony Nese is on his way to the ring for a match and gets annoyed when an interviewer tries to talk to him. Buddy Murphy takes the interview instead, saying he’s looking forward to facing Cedric Alexander in his hometown. Last time it was in Cedric’s backyard but this time, Murphy will have 70,000 people in his corner.
Gran Metalik vs. Tony Nese
Everyone else is barred from ringside (and the wide shot suggests that they’re barred from sitting in the stands as well). Nese shoulders him down to start and they trade some armdrags. A dropkick exchange gives us a standoff so Nese kicks him down. Nese has to bail out of a Lionsault so Metalik hits a springboard armdrag and Nese is sent out to the floor for a breather. You can’t do that to a luchador so the dive is loaded up but Nese trips him instead.
A swing into the barricade has Metalik in trouble as the amount of empty seats in the bottom half of the arena is as bad as I’ve ever seen them for this show. There are full empty rows visible and there might be more empty seats than full ones. Back in and Metalik elbows him in the face, followed by a tornado DDT to plant Nese. Metalik’s rope walk dropkick gets two but he slightly botches a spinning sunset flip. Nese gets sent to the apron so Metalik can try a running hurricanrana, land on the top rope for a second, and then hit it a second later.
A moonsault to the floor hits Nese’s raised boots and they’re both down. Nese is up first for the running flip dive, followed by a 450 for two back inside. The running knee is cut off by a superkick and the Metalik Driver gets two. Metalik goes up and manages to crotch Nese, setting up a springboard hurricanrana. The rope walk elbow is good for the pin at 11:09.
Rating: C-. This got some time but it was more long than good, which is rarely a good thing. There were some notable bad spots in there too, but the bigger problem is the empty arena. You can’t avoid something like that and it looked horrible no matter what they did. With this as the way to start the show, I can’t say I’m surprised by the fans not being thrilled. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly thrilling stuff.
Percy gets a noisemaker and Nigel looks like he wants to kill him.
We look back at Hideo Itami destroying the jobber last week until Mustafa Ali came in to chase him off.
Ali comes in to see Maverick and mentions the Authors of Pain, but Drake tells him to stay out of it. Maverick wasn’t pleased with what happened last week and Ali isn’t wrestling again until Maverick says so.
Noam Dar vs. Bryan Kelly
Lio Rush comes out for commentary. Kelly is the name of Notre Dame’s, a University of Michigan rival, football coach. After Rush only shakes Nigel’s hand, he complains about not getting booked while Dar is in the ring. Dar fires off some knees to the ribs and hiptosses Kelly into the ropes. Kelly armbars him to no effect and Dar kicks him off the middle rope. The Nova Roller finishes Kelly at 2:30.
Dar stares at Rush. That could be a fun one.
Maverick runs into Cedric Alexander in the back and allows him to call out Drew Gulak. Just keep it professional.
Here’s Cedric who gets straight to the point by calling Gulak out. There’s no Gulak but here’s TJP instead. TJP isn’t good at waiting in line and he’s not waiting in line for his shot at the Cruiserweight Title. He wants to fight right now and Cedric is more than ready. Cue Maverick to say let’s have the match right now, non-title though.
Cedric Alexander vs. TJP
Non-title. Cedric takes him down by the wrist to start but a shoulder just makes TJP nip up. That earns him a shove right back down, which is a smarter move than it should be. The Neuralizer puts TJP on the floor and there’s the suicide dive. TJP is right back up with a DDT onto the apron (that’s turned into a free space on the wrestling Bingo card) and Cedric is in trouble. A slingshot headscissors into an Octopus Hold is reversed into a Brock Lock of all things but TJP reverses that into a rollup.
Cedric dropkicks him to the floor but gets caught in a modified Octopus Hold in the ropes. That’s enough to bang up Alexander’s arm so TJP sends it into the buckle. Cedric almost drops him on a Michinoku Driver attempt but TJP is smart enough to switch it into a rollup to keep things looking fine. The Pentagon Jr. arm snap makes Alexander scream and the rolling suplexes get two. An armbar goes on for a bit until the springboard spinning forearm drops Cedric again.
He’s fine enough for the springboard clothesline, which is a pretty bad idea when you have an injured arm. A suplex into a gutbuster (that’s a new one) gives Cedric two but the Lumbar Check is countered into a Kimura with a bodyscissors. That’s broken up as well so TJP puts on a Fujiwara armbar but switches it over to the kneebar instead. As usual, the first attempt doesn’t work very well and Cedric is in the ropes in a hurry. TJP tries the Detonation Kick but gets reversed into a one armed Lumbar Check to give Cedric the pin at 11:01.
Rating: B. They were telling a nice story here with the arm work and everything that TJP did to hurt Cedric. Throw in the good idea of having Cedric use one arm for his finisher instead of doing the full version and this was a very solid main event. I could have gone with more hype for such a big time match but it’s not like it’s going to change the audience or anything.
Post match here’s Gulak to say he accepts the challenge but Jack Gallagher runs in from behind to take Cedric out. The Gulak puts Cedric to sleep, drawing Maverick out for the save to end the show. They’re getting somewhere with this Cedric as a fighting champion deal and whoever finally takes the title from him is going to look like a giant killer.
Overall Rating: C. The main event bailed the show out but there’s no way around those crowd shots. It’s depressing, to the point where it had to get in the wrestlers’ heads. There was just almost no one there and there’s not much you can do to make up for that. Hopefully it’s better next week, but this show isn’t going to last with that kind of a visual. WWE won’t stand for it.
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